All in a name...

We've been kicking around the idea of changing our name. It seems that the word "ministries" evokes images of bible thumping or prostelytzing or religion or something along those lines. As a result, there may be people who hesitate to fund us as a result. It would be interesting to know what you think. I think that the bigger choking point with Desert Ministries is not the word "ministries" but instead the word "elderly." We can understand spending money on children, building houses, or feeding people, but as one CEO put "...this [elderly] would be at the bottom of our list."

Now be sure, this isn't me with a bunch of sour grapes in my mouth. For the past 15 years I've traveled the country advocating for the elderly to religious groups primarily, and then to anyone else who will listen to me, and I intend to do that for some time to come.

This is simply about getting you over the negative stereotype of aging. Agesim is the prejudice associated with the elderly, and it is just as damaging as any other prejudice. It ultimately results in our elders being marginalized.

Recently, someone remarked to me about an abuse case which resulted in a residents death. They said, "Well, afterall she was 106 years old." So does that mean hurting someone at the age of 106 is less wrong than if they were 20 or 30 years of age.

Then of course there is the world of denial that we all live in, believing that if I ignore the end of life issues some how I will escape them. As far as I know, no one, other than Jesus and maybe Enoch escaped but even then Jesus was dead for some period of time.

Denial is our biggest obstacle. Maybe instead of changing the word Ministries we should change the word Desert. How about Denial Ministries - reaching out to people who live in denial?